Aapravasi Ghat

In the district of Port Louis, lies the 1,640 m2 site where the modern indentured labour diaspora began. In 1834, the British Government selected the island of Mauritius to be the first site for what it called ‘the great experiment’ in the use of ‘free’ labour to replace slaves. Between 1834 and 1920, almost half a million indentured labourers arrived from India at Aapravasi Ghat to work in the sugar plantations of Mauritius, or to be transferred to Reunion Island, Australia, southern and eastern Africa or the Caribbean. The buildings of Aapravasi Ghat are among the earliest explicit manifestations of what was to become a global economic system and one of the greatest migrations in history.

Trivia

Only the partial remains of three stone buildings from the entire complex have survived due to unchecked infrastructural development in the mid-20th century.

Alluding to its function as a pit stop to prospective plantation workers, alternatively called coolies, the Immigration Depot has also been known by an older name, the Coolie Ghat.

Immigrants arriving via the “coolie ships” on the wharf of Trou Fanfaron were led to the Immigration Depot via a series of 14 stone steps, which are presently intact.

In Mauritius, 68 percent of the current total population has Indian forebears who came here as indentured labourers.

Year of Inscription: 2006

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In the district of Port Louis, lies the 1,640 m2 site where the modern indentured labour diaspora began. In 1834, the British Government selected the island of Mauritius to be the first site for what it called ‘the great experiment’ in the use of ‘free’ labour to replace slaves....

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